DIGITAL MARKETING: Session 4

Keywords
 Learning Objectives

• Recap – what are keywords?

• Keyword Research

• Types of Keywords

• Keyword Match Type

• Negative Keywords

• Working with Keywords – Google Ads Account Structure

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 What are Keywords?

• Keywords are words or phrases that are used to match your ads with the
terms people are searching for.

• Keywords are the fundamental building block of Adwords

• They are the unit of purchasing advertising on Search Engines

• Google uses the keywords you have in your account to show your ads to
relevant searches on Google

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 Understanding the Buyer Purchase Funnel

Let’s consider the example of a user looking to buy a laptop

Mindset Keywords

Want to know about the top laptop New laptops, Best laptops, Some
brands brands

Want to know more about specific Laptops with MS Office, Lightweight

products / features laptops,

Compare between a few options Brand 1 vs. Brand 2, reviews

Looking to buy a particular laptop Product name, best deals, lowest

price, free shipping

Want to know more about usage How to do xxx, how to upgrade

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 Understanding the Buyer Purchase Funnel

Let’s consider the example of a user looking to buy a laptop

Keywords

New laptops, Best laptops, Some Top of Funnel

brands

Laptops with MS Office, Lightweight

laptops,
Mid Funnel
Brand 1 vs. Brand 2, reviews

Product name, best deals, lowest

price, free shipping Bottom of Funnel
How to do xxx, how to upgrade

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 Characteristics of Funnel Keywords

Top of Funnel Mid Funnel Bottom of Funnel

Type of Search Broad / Generic More targeted Highly targeted
Volume High Mid to High Mid to Low
Purchase Intent Low Mid High

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 Role of Marketing across the Funnel

Q. If Bottom of Funnel has highest purchase intent, can I restrict my Adwords

keywords to only those bottom of funnel keywords?

A. Brand Awareness matters

• Research from McKinsey says that with the fragmenting of media and
proliferation of products, consumers are actually reducing the number of
brands they consider at the outset.
• Brands in the initial-consideration set can be up to three times more likely to
be purchased eventually than brands that aren’t in it.
• Brands can also “interrupt” the decision-making process by entering into
consideration at a later stage and even force the exit of rivals.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-consumer-decision-journey

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 Types of Keywords - continued

• Informational
• Used to find more information
• Which laptop, What are key features, Which processer?
• Used typically in the early stage (Awareness / Research)
• Or Post Purchase

• Navigational
• Used typically to find a specific website / brand / retail store
• ‘Laptop stores in Pune’, ‘flipkart’
• Used typically in the mid to later stages (Research / Purchase)

• Transactional
• Used when user is looking to buy
• ‘Buy Dell laptop online’, ‘offers on Dell laptops’
• Used in the later stage (Purchase)

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 Types of Keywords - continued

Head Term vs. Long Tail

Head Term refers to generic search terms with one or two keywords
E.g. – laptops, Dell

Long Tail refers to more specific keywords that are generally longer in length
E.g. – Laptops with i7 processor, 1 TB, Dell Vostro 3468 with MS Office

9 https://croud.com/blog/ppc/ppc-tips-managing-head-terms-versus-long-tail-keywords/
 Characteristics of Head Term vs. Long Tail Keywords

Head Terms Long Tail

Number of keywords Low High
Search Volume High Low
Conversion Rate Low to Medium High
Avg cpc High Low
Competition High Low to Medium
Stage in Purchase Funnel Early Late

https://croud.com/blog/ppc/ppc-tips-managing-head-terms-versus-long-tail-keywords/

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 Keyword Research

• Understand customer path to purchase

• What is the purchase funnel for your industry / product?
• What channels do customers use while shopping?

• Understand use of Search Engines within the customer path to purchase

• At what stage do users use Search Engines?
• What are the kinds of keywords they might be using?

• Review website / competitor sites / social media sites

• What are the keywords you can identify based on your own / competitors
websites?
• What keywords are competitors bidding on?
• What are users discussing on social media sites?

• Review Google Analytics data

• What are the top queries / landing pages for Organic Search traffic?

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 Keyword Research – Google Trends

• Useful tool to understand trends in Searches

• Available at trends.google.com

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 Keyword Research – Keyword Planner

• Useful tool within Google Ads to find relevant keywords

• Gives estimates of volumes, competition, CPC, etc.

https://www.shoutmeloud.com/keyword-research-for-dummies-using-google-keyword-tool.html
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 Keyword Research – SEM Rush

• Third party ‘freemium’ tool for keyword research, similar to Google Keyword
Planner

• https://www.semrush.com/lp/keyword-research/en/

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 Keyword Match Types

Options provided by Adwords to select the type of keyword targeting

Let’s assume you have the keyword ‘Dell Vostro’ in your Adwords campaign

• Exact Match
• Ad is displayed when the Search Term exactly matches the Keyword
• E.g – Dell Vostro
• Phrase Match
• Ad is displayed when the Search Term contains the same phrase
• E.g. – Buy Dell Vostro online
• Broad Match
• As is triggered when user searches for similar term
• E.g. Buy laptops, how are Dell laptops
• Broad Match Modifier
• Specify that a particular word has to be included in the Search Term
• E,g, + Dell Vostro will mean ad is displayed when user searches for How are Dell laptops, not
Buy laptops

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 Keyword Match Types

Broad BMM Phrase Exact

Reach Highest Lower than Lower than Lowest
Broad Broad
Relevance Low Higher than Higher than Highest
Broad BMM
Conversion Likely Low Low Medium Highest
Rate
When to Use Drive awareness Refine traffic Reach a Reach a very
/ traffic targeted intent specific intent
Symbol Dell Vostro +Dell Vostro “Dell Vostro” [Dell Vostro]

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 Keyword Match Types – Close Variants

• Google will show your Exact and Phrase Match keywords even for Search
Terms that are close variations.

• Close variations include misspellings, singular forms, plural forms, acronyms,

stemmings (such as floor and flooring), abbreviations, and accents.

• So there's no need to separately add close variations as keywords.

• E.g. for the Exact Match keyword – Dell Vostro – the ad will also be displayed
when users search for Del Vostro, Del Vosto, etc.

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 Negative Keywords

Negative Keywords help exclude Search Terms from campaigns.

Your Ad will not be shown if the Search Term contains your negative keywords

• Negative Broad Match

• By default, your ad will not show if the Search contains all of your negative terms.
• E.g. if negative keyword is desktop computer, your ad will not be shown if the
Search Term is Dell desktop computer.
• However, it will still be shown for Dell desktop
• Negative Phrase Match
• Your ad will not be displayed if the Search Term contains the keywords in the same
order.
• E.g. Ad won’t be shown for Buy Dell desktop computer online
• Negative Exact
• Your ad will not be displayed if the Search contains only the exact terms, in the
same order
• E.g. Ad won’t be shown for desktop computer.
• However, it might be shown for Buy desktop computer
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 Some tips on using keyword match types

• If you have a limited budget or are just starting out, it might be a good idea to
start with Exact Match keywords only
• This will have lowest volume, but highest relevance

• If you are looking to get more traffic / users, you can expand into Phrase and
Broad

• However, Broad can eat up your budgets quickly

• So it is important to also have the right negative keywords

• Ensures greater relevancy
• Control costs

• Be careful while using negative keywords

• You do not want to accidentally stop your ads from showing on good
keywords
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 Google Ads Account Structure

Google Ads is organized in three layers:

• Account – unique email address, password, billing information

• Campaign – Own budgets, settings for targeting
• Ad Group – Contains a set of similar keywords and ads

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 Why is Account Structure Important?

• Ensure that the right ads are being displayed to the right users, improving
Quality Score

• Easy to review

• Easy to optimize

• Easy to run tests

It is important to get this right from the beginning. Reorganizing your account
afterwards means they lose their historical data and could impact how your ad
performs.

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 Tips for Good Account Structure

• Have a logical organization

• A good tip is to follow the categorization of your website

• Have separate campaigns when you want to use a different set of campaign
setting.
• For example, if you want to have a separate budget for TVs vs. Laptops
• You want to target some ads to some locations only

• Have tightly organized ad groups. Pick a narrow theme and create ad groups
around that theme. For each ad group, use keywords related to that theme.

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 Google Ads Account Structure

Assume you are the Search Marketer for an online electronics store. You wish
to create Paid Search campaigns for Laptops category.

What might your Account Structure look like?

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 Some Standard Campaign Types

• Brand
• Keywords and ads that are related to the brand name

• Generic
• Keywords and ads that relate to the generic search terms within that category

• Specific
• Related to the specific products / services that you are offering
• Categories, Products
• Destinations, Properties

• Competitors
• Keywords and ads targeting your competitors

• Promotions
• Ads and keywords related to a specific promotion
• Typically time-bound
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 Account Limits

• Campaign and ad group limits

• 10,000 campaigns per account (includes active and paused)
• 20,000 ad groups per campaign
• 20,000 ad group targeting items per ad group (such as keywords, placements, and
audience lists)

• Ad Limits
• 300 image/gallery ads per ad group
• 50 active text and non-image/gallery ads per ad group
• 4 million ads per account (includes active and paused)

• Negative keyword limits

• 20 shared negative keyword lists per account
• 5,000 keywords per negative keyword list
• 10,000 negative keywords per campaign

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 Discussion

Gofoodle is a food-tech start-up that aims to provide an online platform for

event catering. They are presently operating only in Bangalore.

They wanted to use Paid Search to drive business.

Discuss the keyword portfolio they could use in their Paid Search campaigns

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 Discussion

Campaigns, Ad Groups & Keywords

Campaign Ad Group Keywords

General Catering General +catering, [catering services]
Specific Brahmin/Iyer/Iyengar +brahmin+caterers,
+iyer+caterers+bangalore
Party & Occasions Catering +office+party+catering,
+birthday+party+catering
South India catering +tamil+catering,
+kerala+sadhya+catering
Corporate Lunch boxes +corporate catering,
+office+lunch+catering

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 Discussion

Match Types

• Launched with Broad Match Modified

• To get maximum reach
• Understand search terms volumes

• Subsequently rolled out Exact / Phrase matches, for

• Keywords with a minimum volumes of searches

Negative Keywords

• “catering jobs”, “catering studies”, “catering classes”, “railway”, “flight”

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 Discussion

A leading global online travel brand in the budget accommodation sector had
historically built up its business organically. SEO and direct traffic were the
primary sources of traffic to their website. The company was looking to
increase its sales growth.

The company had been running some Paid Search activity, across Brand and
Generic campaigns. They realised that there existed significant opportunity to
increase traffic and sales by expanding and optimising their Paid Search
campaigns.

How could they go about expanding their Paid Search?

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 Discussion

To begin with, the marketing team put in place data driven processes to review,
expand and optimise their keyword lists.

They reviewed their supply across various destinations. They added keywords
for destinations where there existed a good number of properties.

Similarly, they reviewed availability within the properties listed on their site.
They started adding keywords for the properties that were listed on their site
and had sufficient availability.

They then also looked at adding keywords for competitors, keeping in mind
that these typically have very high cpcs.

By doing all of the above, they were able to significantly grow the sales coming
from Paid Search which helped them meet their overall business objective.

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 Let Us Sum Up

• It is important to have the right keywords in your Adwords to drive

maximum effectiveness.
• Having a good understanding of the consumer purchase funnel can help us
identify the right keywords.
• There are 4 match types in Adwords – Exact, Phrase, Broad and Broad Match
Modified.
• Negative keywords can be used if you do not want your ads to be shown for
certain keywords.
• Tools such as Google Trends, Google Ads Keyword Planner, SEM Rush can be
used for keyword research.
• Once you have identified your keywords, it is important that you organize
them properly in Adwords to have maximum benefits.
• We also looked at some of the current limits for Adwords accounts.

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